


Fragments (How bad can a slayer's life get?)

by Sathierhe



Series: Slayers Reborn [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst!, Conversion War, F/F, F/M, Fragments of a future timeline, Post-Chosen, Said relationships are still f'd up with souls returned, Slayer War Form, Slayer-Vampires, Slayers Reborn, Souless Slayer-Vamps have f'd up relationships, Soulmates, Super-Slayers, Total FUBAR, Triune (B/W/F), Vampire Slayer(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sathierhe/pseuds/Sathierhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chosen was only the beginning of all that would come.  The Slayer power source was not unlimited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lalania (beginning)

September 2003

Kennedy parks the car in front of an old, white, three story house.  Most of the house on the street look like they might have been built over a century ago.  This one’s in better repair than most, but the style still gives it away.  Jamie can easily envision a rich family living here when Decatur was still a muddy trading post and Atlanta was a day to the west.  Images from _Gone with the Wind_ dance in her head, but she has no idea if they’re at all accurate.

“This is it,” Kennedy tells her.  “Are you ready to meet Amy and Lalania?”

Jamie doesn’t know what to say.  Better than living in a foster home for the next three years, she supposes.

Kennedy pops the trunk and exits the car.  “Shall we get your stuff?”  She doesn’t wait for Jamie to answer, and quickly unloads the two old duffle bags and a backpack that contain all Jamie’s possessions, most of which still smell faintly of smoke.

Jamie steps out of the car and looks around.  It’s a nice summer afternoon, partly cloudy, different from Tennessee, but still familiar too.  The sun is hot on her left, but the house is surrounded by trees, and well shaded.  Kennedy stands beside her for a moment, baggage in hand, and together they walk to the house and up the porch steps.

The door opens as Kennedy lifts the knocker, pulling it from her hand.  A woman stands at the door, pretty, can’t be much older than thirty.  She doesn’t look at all like the Watchers that Kennedy has talked about.  Her hair is a light brown and looks a bit mussed, and her bangs hang slightly in her eyes. 

She smiles first at Kennedy, then at Jamie, and looks genuinely happy to see them.  “You must be Kennedy and Jamie.  I’m Amy,” she says with a faint accent that might be French, “Come in.  Come in.” she opens the door fully and gestures at them.

The house looks bigger and much richer on the inside, and Jamie pauses and looks around in awe as Amy closes the door behind her.  To the left is a large curving hardwood stairway to the second floor.  The railing are of a slightly darker wood and look well worn.  Straight ahead is a short hallway to the kitchen, and she can see an island set in the middle with a sandwich on a plate at one side.  She can see a rear deck and trees through a window in the back door.  On her right is a large living room with a thick rug over the hardwood floor and a stone fireplace at the wall to the far right.  The furniture looks comfortable and inviting.  The coffee table is nearly covered by open books.  There is a pair of glass doors on the north side of the living room, and Jamie can see a large oak table with at least ten matching chairs in the room beyond.

“Lalania?” Amy calls up the stairs, “Please come down and meet Jamie.”  Amy turns to Jamie and tells her “She tends to get caught up in her studies and lose track of everything else.”

“What’s she studying?” Kennedy asks.

“Um, Sumerian demonology, specifically anything to do with Resheph.  There’s a pair of slayers in Iran who’re having some trouble with a creature that claims to be Resheph, and I asked Lalania if she’d...” She trails off as feet pound down the stairs. 

“The Kirta text doesn’t have anything we can use,” announces a girl in a pale blue dress as she descends.  Lalania is maybe 5 feet tall, mid-growth-spurt thin, a bit awkward and suddenly self-conscious in her movements.  Her hair is a wavy brown, very light tan, blue eyes.  Brilliant, slightly shy smile as she sees Jamie.

“Which translation are you reading?” Kennedy asks as she sheds Jamie’s bags.  “I’ve heard Galloway and Reeves did a terrible job.”

Lalania turns to Amy briefly and receives a nod.  She seems a bit embarrassed, but much more confident now.  “It’s not a translation.  I’m using several dictionaries and grammars to check myself, but I’ve been looking at the original cuneiform.” 

“Oh,” Kennedy replies.

“Lalania, we’ll talk about your work later.  Right now though, this is Kennedy,” she gestures, “and this is Jamie.”

Jamie smiles slightly and waves.  She really misses her mom.

“Nice to meet you,” Lalania says to both of them.  She steps up to Jamie and tentatively asks “Would you like to see the house?”  She seems about say more, but stops herself.

Jamie looks up at Kennedy and Amy.  They’re both watching her. 

“Go ahead, this is your home now,” Kennedy says.  “You two should get to know each other.”

Jamie turns back to Lalania.  They both smile.

 


	2. The Immortal

May 2004

Buffy wakes suddenly from dreams of violence.  Willow is still asleep beside her on the hospital bed, and from what little she understands about all the machines that are hooked up to her, it doesn’t appear that her vital signs have changed.  She brushes Willow’s hair back from her face and caresses her cheek.  She can feel Willow’s mind dreaming, and they don’t feel like happy dreams.  She thinks that Willows dreams are what woke her.

Buffy looks around, just to make sure.  _Not that I could do much about it with in my current condition_ , she thinks.  But she’s not bleeding anymore, and her bones have begun to knit.  The room is quiet, with only the regular beeps and whirs of the machines to keep her company.  She looks inside herself, and can feel Tricia sitting on the other side of the wall, guarding the door.  Everything’s fine out there.  She senses Sandra somewhere nearby, and that means that Dawn probably is too.

_But it’s not enough_ , she reflects, _I can’t kill him, none of us can._   The Immortal, Andréaus,  her would-be almost-was lover, simply could not be killed by any known means, including dismemberment with the Scythe.  Which was, of course, why he had sent his assassins to poison the one person who might, possibly, be resourceful and powerful enough to kill him.

She hadn’t been thinking.  Her only goal had been to inflict more pain on him than he had caused to herself and Willow.  She’d even killed slayers, her _sisters_ , to get to him.  And now she couldn’t even remember their faces, and she felt guilty that she didn’t feel guilty about that. 

This whole _stupid_ war was because ‘The Immortal’, despite having lived for over 22 centuries, was still an _incredibly_ petty man.  Maybe even more so because of his age.  And Buffy had chosen _Willow_ instead of him.  Not only had he taken that choice as a huge insult to his pride ( _stupid male virility crap_...), but she had also broken his spells on her mind in order to make that choice.  And the big kicker was that without Buffy as a figurehead, he couldn’t make the slayers into his personal army. 

_I’m so sorry Will_ , she thinks, _if we hadn’t decided to come back to Rome to make a stand, this never would have happened to you._   She puts her head on Willow’s chest and listens to her heartbeat and breathing.  She barely feels the tears.  _If I’d known, I would have kept running until we found a way to kill him._   But even as she thinks it, she knows it isn’t entirely true.  Andréaus’ assassins seemed to be able to find them anywhere in Europe, and she had no reason to doubt that that would be true throughout the rest of the world.  Andréaus was a frighteningly capable warlock, and Buffy knew she wasn’t the first Slayer he’d courted.  She was just the first to defy him and survive.  _Sorta_.  Surviving without Willow would be pointless.  She wouldn’t be whole.

Something had clicked into place for her when Andréaus tried to seduce her, to break her, and she still didn’t understand it.  Just a flicker of sunset light through the blinds onto the wall, red like Willow’s hair, and his spell had cracked.  Even with him right there in front of her, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of Willow, of last Thanksgiving talking until 3am and waking up on the couch with Willow on top of her.  That had been one of the most peaceful moments of her life..., at least until Dawn had waved at her from the breakfast bar.  And those thoughts had shattered his spell and freed her mind, and suddenly she could _feel_ Willow back at their apartment, missing her, needing her.  Since the end of February their bond had grown, and each of them seemed to always be able to sense the other and know instinctively what she was feeling.  Willow had become part of her at the emotional and spiritual level, and she’d come to depend on their connection for strength and support, and as a tangible reminder that no matter what happened, she was _never_ alone.

And now Willow is dying, and Buffy _feels_ her dying.  And all her terrible rage at Andréaus for poisoning her can't undo what his assassin had done, couldn’t even kill him, and she’d had to retreat.  Andréaus had made her a victim more than Faith ever had.

Buffy’s mind turns inward to curl protectively around that flickering red-and-green fire that she thinks of as _Willow-within-me_.  The fire is low, dying, but it’s still the most beautiful, powerful thing she’s ever experienced.  Something inside her shatters, and she distantly feels her body sobbing as she realizes that there is _nothing_ she wouldn’t do or give in order to keep that flame burning bright and happy.  Inwardly she reaches out, gathers what she thinks of as _myself_ and tries to feed it into the fire as fuel.  She speaks to the fire, to Willow, and she doesn’t know or care if she’s speaking aloud or only in her mind.

“ _I can’t live without you, Will.  You’re my Light and my Hope.  I love you more than I have any way to express.  I need you to come back to me, or I’m gonna follow you...  Please come back to me.  Please come back to me.  Come back to me.  Come back..._ ”  She feeds herself into the fire, mentally blows gently on the embers, and begs and pleads.  The fire flickers, then steadies and burns a bit more strongly.  Outside her mind, she feels Willow stir and senses that something is changing, but it needs more form her.  Encouraged, Buffy gathers closer to the fire and begins drawing further on herself, on her love for Willow, and feeds all of it into the red-green flame as fast as it can burn.  She begins to feel weak and disconnected, but the fire is stronger, and she can _feel_ Willow’s body purging itself of the magically potent poison, so she continues.

Then something shifts, some balance point is reached, and she finds that she is feeling stronger again.  It feels as if what she feeds into the fire, the lifeforce that she steals from herself to give Willow, isn’t so much consumed as _changed_.  And Willow is passing it back to her with a resonance of herself added.  _More than the sum of our parts_ , she thinks.  She feels her body healing quickly.  Willow’s body feels hot, but the machine sounds haven’t changed.

The shift happens again, another balance point reached, and the _Willow-within-me_ flame roars outward.  For an everlasting moment she can feel everything Willow feels for her, and it’s brighter and softer and gentler than all her time in heaven.  Her own soul’s reflection in Willow’s mind flares in response, and she feels lips pressed against her own.

The pressure withdraws for a moment.  “Don’t cry, Buffy,” Willow mumbles into her mouth, “I’m not going anywhere.”  And that, of course, makes her cry all the harder.

 


	3. Join Us

October 2005

It's windy outside, as is usual for San Francisco.  Generally she'd find that soothing and be able to go back to sleep for another hour or so, but the afternoon sun is shining full in Faith's face and also making the room uncomfortably warm.  It's one of the drawbacks to living in an apartment with a house fan instead of A/C. 

She cracks open one eye and squints at the clock.  3:47 pm. 

Crap.

B was supposed to be swinging by for breakfast… _at 4-ish?_ she dimly recalls.  Gotta get moving **now**.

_"There's something I want to talk to you about, and I think you'll like it," Buffy had said with a mischievous tone._

_"What's that?" she asked, instantly suspicious of surprise topics._

_"Trust me, you'll **like** it.  You're still at the same address, right?"_

_"Huh?  Yeah.  Why?"_

_"Because I'm gonna pick you up and take you to breakfast at Fisherman's Whorf."  What the hell is B doing in San Fran? She decides not to ask._

_"K..ah, B… you do mean **Slayer** breakfast hours, right?"  She didn’t bother to mention the traffic issue.  Hopefully it would be Willow or at least **not** Buffy driving._

_"Of course.  How's 4 pm sound?"_

_"Okay, whatever, but this'd better not be another 'bad' surprise, like that time you called to say Willow was a hostage and could I please save her."_

_"No, nothing at all like that.”  She pauses.  “I **still** have nightmares about that day."  Buffy’s voice sounds forced, despite her joking tone.  The nightmares must be pretty bad._

_"You two are still solid, right?  'Cause the world would, like, change its orbit or something if you and Red ever break up.  Just lemme know if the Immortal has a brother or something who's trying to fuck with your heads again, 'cause that shit is **not** allowed on my watch."  She may not have a chance with either of them anymore, if she ever did, but she'll be dammed all over again if she'll allow a repeat of two years ago._

_"Everything's **fine**.  You'll find out tomorrow, and its **good** news, so stop worrying.  Remember, four-o'clock."_

_"I’ll be waiting."_

As she exits the shower Faith hears a car slow to a stop against the curb outside.  The engine cuts off, and she hears the car lurch and the brakes screech for a moment before the driver engages the e-brake.  Flatlanders. 

Faith quickly discards the towel and yanks on a pair of leather pants, then picks a bra and black tank top from the clean (she hopes) laundry pile.  She peeks out the window between the blinds as she adjusts her bra and sees Buffy close the driver's side door of a blue sedan with tinted windows.  Surprisingly, the car looks undamaged.  Faith pulls the top over her head as she runs barefoot down the stairs and out the front door. 

She meets Buffy halfway up the very short front walkway and hugs her tightly.  As usual, Buffy feels and smells like the closest thing to home she's ever known.  _I will **not** screw up again with her_ , Faith mentally repeats for the nth time as she thinks about last year and how she **_never_** felt more loved and welcome than she had while they shared a house in Cleveland.  Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Sandra, and Tricia had become the first true **_family_** she’d ever had.  Plus, they’d all beat the bloody crap out of the Final Dusk in the northeast.  The _only_ reason she’d left had been that, even though she loved them both, it had hurt too much to watch Buffy and Willow fall ever more deeply in love, while she was denied any more than friendship.

Buffy lets the hug last much longer than she usually does, but eventually pulls back slightly, and Faith lets go and tries not to show her reluctance.  Then she sees Buffy's expression.

There's a sparkle in Buffy's eyes and a quirk of mischief in her smile that's deeper and more mysterious than anything Faith's seen from her before.  Buffy looks absolutely radiant and it's far more than just golden hair and lightly bronzed skin in bright sunlight.  Buffy's smile falters slightly for just an instant, touched by a bit of uncertainty.  Faith wonders if there really **is** something wrong, and is about to ask, when Buffy's smile and sparkle return at full force.

"Okay B, so what brings the surprise visit?" Faith tries to sound annoyed, but finds that she's too busy smiling back at Buffy to sound anything but happy.

Buffy says nothing.  Instead, that mischievous expression intensifies as Buffy takes a half step forward and presses her body and then her lips against Faith's own.  The kiss is soft but passionate and very insistent, and Buffy's arms feel ready to hold her in place if she has to.

But she doesn't have to.  Faith has had dreams like this for _years_ , and she intends to enjoy it.  Now, in Buffy’s kiss, Faith finds everything she’s ever wanted, and she’s not about to question the how or why unless she has to.  So as they gently sink down onto her front steps, Faith continues to urgently returning Buffy’s kiss until she hears a car door open.  She looks up and sees Willow stepping out of the passenger seat.  Willow’s expression is neutral and unreadable, and Faith suddenly wonders if maybe she misinterpreted Buffy’s actions and forced herself on her, and **_crap_** _what if she’s just screwed up the best relationship either of them has ever had?_

Faith’s expression is guilty and very unsure as she stands and Willow walks toward them.  Buffy remains seated on the steps, smiling, and Faith doesn’t have a clue why.  Willow stops two feet in front of Faith, definitely invading her personal space, her expression still unreadable.  Faith expects to be slapped, or worse.  With Willow ‘worse’ is _always_ possible.  Willow’s expression shifts to a shy smile, and this somehow makes Faith feel less guilty and far more nervous.  She’s seen Willow smile almost like this right before doing something really violent with magic.

Through their connection Faith feels that Buffy is _happy_ , ridiculously so, and maybe this is a dream after all, because as soon as she notices Buffy’s emotions, Willow steps forward and _kisses_ her, passionately, just like Buffy did, and it goes way beyond ‘friendly’.  Faith nearly freezes in shock, except that she’s had dreams like this before too, and her body knows what to do.  This doesn’t _feel_ like a dream, but it doesn’t feel like reality either.  She has no idea what’s happening, but she _likes_ it.

Willow eventually steps back and Faith begins breathing again.  Her skin feels hot all over, and she’s panting, and she absently wonders if she’s ruined this pair of pants.

“Wwha...?” is all she gets out before Willow quiets her with a fingertip to her lips.  Her expression is gentle and only a little shy.  Willow’s grown immensely since Faith first met her.

Willow waits for her to shut her mouth, then continues in a soothing tone.  “We want you to join us, stay with us.  We love you.”

Faith blinks in confusion.

“This probably feels like one of those ‘ _out of the blue_ ’ moments to you,” Buffy says evenly, “but it’s not.” 

Faith mentally checks their ‘Chosen Two’ connection again, which for some reason has always been at least ten times stronger than what she feels from the new slayers, and finds what she _never_ , even in her dreams, expected – Buffy letting her sense more than just strong emotions.  And suddenly Faith _knows_ that Buffy has always felt the same attraction, but never felt comfortable acting on it.  Until now, with Willow by her side.  _Is this a dream_?

Perhaps responding to what they’re both feeling, or perhaps to her thought, Buffy says “It’s real, Faith.  I, um, I figured out a few years ago how you felt about me, and a few months ago Willow and I started talking, and everything kinda fell into place.  I...  I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”

Willow tells her “You... you’re not the only one to have confusey feelings.  We haven’t said anything until now because we needed to make sure that we were, yunno, _sure_.”  Willow is suddenly a shy overlooked geek again as she mumbles “So, um...”

Buffy finishes for her “So we got to talking about last winter while the three of us were fighting those stupid daywalker combusto vamps, and Will and I decided that those were some of the best times we’d ever had, and that we _really_ miss you.  And we think we know why you left, and we don’t think it has anything to do with wanderlust.”  Apparently this makes much more sense to Red and B than it does to Faith.  Buffy stands and steps to Willow’s side and each puts an arm around the other's waist.  “So what’d’ya say?  Join us?” 

Buffy and Willow each extend a hand to her.  Faith feels strongly that there’s something more here than what she’s seeing on the surface, and this feels like some sort of test, but she’s wanted them both for so long that she _can’t_ stop now, no matter how much she suddenly wants to run fast and far away.   Faith takes a deep breath and tentatively puts a hand in each of theirs.  A moment later she feels a surge from some sort of _connection_ linking them, something new, powerful, like a closed circuit to a nuclear generator.  She can sense that they feel it too, and that this is similar to what they’ve been feeling for each other for the last two years.

Then the surge subsides, and Buffy releases Willow and steps around her, so that Faith’s got one of them on each side of her.  The two of them lock hands behind her back and begin walking her toward the car, and Willow announces “I want waffles.”

 


	4. Lalania (middle)

January 2006

Kirsten feels like she’s about to pass out from suffocation from suppressing her breathing.  Her heart is pounding at least 180 and she can't seem to slow it.  She’s trying desperately to keep her breathing as quiet as possible.  She’s sure the vampires will hear her anyway.

One of them mutters near her, and she considers trying to reach above her into the silverware drawer.  She wouldn’t have to leave the cabinet or open the drawer, but the vampire might hear her before she found the carving knife.

Her mother is still screaming, and she almost wants her to stop.  Kirsten doesn’t know what they’re doing to her, and doesn’t want to.  Her screams have gotten much weaker over the last few minutes.  Kirsten thinks the Joe, Jim... George? ... her mom’s man of the week is probably already dead.  She hasn’t heard him wheezing for at least half an hour, and she knows he lost a lot of blood when they tore into his neck, and there’s more of it on the kitchen floor just beyond the cabinet.

Something crawls across her right fingertips, and she shrieks a little before she realizes that it’s just a roach and muffles it.  The conversation in her mom’s room stops, and she quickly fumbles into the drawer above her head.  She hears several sets of footsteps on linoleum squiching slightly on the blood, and then her hand finds the distinctive wooden handle of the carving knife.  She’s making too much noise, and hears one of them walking towards her hiding place.  _She can’t get her hand out of the drawer._

The cabinet door opens suddenly and light floods over her.  She feels more scared and exposed than any time in her entire life as she looks a the vampire’s yellow eyes and his mustache still covered with her mother’s blood.  He’s wearing cowboy boots, crisp new denim pants, and a filthy blue and red flannel shirt.

“We thought you’d run’d off ar’eady,” the monster slurs as his hand clamps on to her left arm and _yanks_ her out of her nest of Tupperware and Pyrex.  Her hand doesn’t let go of the knife, and the particle board breaks as her hand is pulled painfully out of the drawer.  Two other men watch with distorted faces and yellow eyes.  One of them is dressed in black leather and silver studs, while the other looks like an 80's fashion disaster.  Kirsten glimpses the dirty haired blond woman’s head bent to her mother’s neck, and Kirsten can _hear_ the sucking noises.

Kirsten shrieks and lashes out with the knife, catching the vampire across his left eye socket and cheek.  The wound isn’t deep because the knife is dull, but he lets go of her and stumbles backward, then slips in the blood and trips over Jim’s (?) body. 

Kirsten lunges at the watching biker guy on the right because he’s closes to the door.  She surprises him and sinks the knife several inches into his gut just above his left hip, but he catches her hand in a wrist lock and swings it in an arc across his chest.  Kirsten’s arm roars in agony as she feels something pop in her elbow.  The knife falls from his wound as his right knee rises to impact against her chin and nose.  Kirsten feels her head snap back and the world goes dim for a moment.  The biker continues twisting her arm until it wraps behind her back, then he pushes just a bit more.  The pain as her right shoulder pops out of the socket brings her suddenly back to reality.  He slams her face first into the counter edge so hard that her left cheek splits open, then down onto the floor at the edge of the blood, and he lands hard on top of her with a knee.  Whatever change happened to her a month ago keeps her ribs from cracking, but that’s all.  She can’t breathe.

“ _Slayer_ ,” the man above her snarls into her right ear as he smashes her face into the blood and dirty linoleum.  He says it like a curse, or an omen.  She doesn’t know what a ‘slayer’ is, but she’s pretty sure she’s not one.  Her left hand fumbles blindly through Joe’s blood for something, anything, that she can use as a weapon.  She can't move her head or torso, and can't not watch the woman drink her mother's blood.

“ _Bitch_ ,” the mustached vampire slurs, then something lands heavily on her hand and she feels several bones break.  She feels faint, but isn't sure if it's from pain or lack of oxygen.

She hears movement outside the front door.  It briefly opens and she glimpses a small hand throw three dark green apple sized objects into the hall, then the door shuts.  The objects immediately begin jetting out a pale white gas.  The vampire above her doesn’t move, but all of them begin yelling at each other.  The woman on her mother jumps up and runs for the kitchen.  The door  opens as she reaches it and her face impacts its edge.  The same small hand lashes out as she falls, and seems to hit her on the chest.  She explodes into dust.

The two other men in the kitchen run for the hall as her captor tells her in a gravelly voice “Move, and I’ll rip you head off.”  Kirsten does nothing.  Her vision is darkening.  She needs to breath.

The fashion disaster grabs one of the gas grenades, as if to throw it somewhere, then promptly screams and drops it and begins cursing.  The mustached man yanks open the door and stops.  Kirsten can’t see why, but he stumbles back a few steps, then also explodes into dust.  The fashion disaster stops cursing and stands there in surprise for a moment, then sways on his feet and stumbles against the wall.

The man above her stands quickly and moves off of her, only to drive a booted foot very hard into her right kidney.  As she curls on to her right side and gasps from pain and need for air he steps to the hallway and draws a pistol.  The stab wound she caused doesn’t seem to bother him.  The door is still open, and he peers around it, gun at the ready.  He sways a little on his feet, but the gun is steady.  He doesn’t appear to be breathing.  He steps behind the door, and Kirsten hears a thud.  He stumble back from the doorway and turns to dust before he can fall into the bathroom.  His unsteady companion wears an expression like he's stoned.

Now that she can breathe, Kirsten can smell the air.  The gas smells slightly like pool water, and it makes her feel nauseous and light headed.

A slender girl wearing a black jumpsuit and a gas mask lunges into the hallway and rams what looks like a wooden stake into the leaning vampire’s chest.  He explodes into a cloud of dust.  The girl hefts a harpoon gun in her left hand as she stands and looks around.  Kirsten’s vision grows dim as the girl walks cautiously into the kitchen and kneels by her, then stows her weapons at her belt and picks her up.  The girl takes her outside and lays her on the lawn between her apartment and the next building.  She takes off the gas mask and looks down at Kirsten. 

“How badly are you hurt?” she asks as she gently inspects Kirsten’s right shoulder.  Kirsten still feels too faint to answer.  The girl can’t be more than 18, and probably not much older than herself, maybe 16.  Kirsten can’t clearly make out her features in the street light, but she’s beautiful.  Wavy brunette hair, blue or green eyes, pale skin.

The girl moves Kirsten’s arm, and she groans as fire races out from her shoulder.

“Your shoulder’s been dislocated, and I think your elbow too.  I can help, but it’ll hurt.”  Kirsten nods faintly, and the girl bends her elbow until her wrist touches her shoulder, then twists slightly.  It’s agony for both joints.  Something pops, and her elbow feels slightly better.  The girl straddles her waist and rolls her onto her left side, then rotates and presses on her shoulder until it pops and her arm goes briefly numb, then feels like liquid metal.  Kirstin screams, or tries to, but can’t quite fill her lungs. 

“Breathe,” the girl tells her softly.  “Just breathe.  You’re going to be alright.”  The girl holds her as Kirsten relearns how to breathe.

“ _My mom..._ ” Kirsten finally chokes out.

“I know,” she says, “I’m sorry I was too late to save them, but you’re _not_ alone, and I’ll help you however I can.  Is there someplace I can take you?”

Kirsten shakes her head.  “No, there was just my mom.”  Kirsten begins sobbing, and it feels like it’ll never stop.  The girl holds her for several minutes, then eases her up and tries to stand, but Kirsten won’t let her go.

“I need to get some of your things, but you should stay here.”

“Why?  Wha...  Who are you?”

The girl smiles weakly, and it’s almost a wince for Kirsten’s injuries and trauma.  “My name is Lalania.”

 


	5. Ashes

May 2006

Tricia stands outside the old barn to watch the sunrise.  The doors are open, and the wind is blowing, but the sky is clear.  It's going to be a beautiful day.  The rolling meadow is dotted with other farms all around - they were lucky to have found this one abandoned.

Wavy dark blond hair swirls briefly into her eyes, and she notes that there's blood in it.  She lifts her hand to push it back and maybe retie it, and notices that her right hand is covered in blood from a long gash down her forearm, but that the wound has clotted and the blood is drying.  She mentally checks the rest of her body, cataloguing new injuries.  Her left foot feels a bit damaged, possibly a few broken metatarsals.  She's got four semi-deep claw lines down the length of her left calf.  The sharp pain in her back might be a stab wound that just missed her right kidney.  Her right ring and pinky fingers have been badly hyperextended and possibly broken.  She may have a cracked right femur.  And there's something sticky on her cheek that stings slightly.

But none of it really _hurts_ \- or at least not enough to break through the seemingly limitless **_tiredness_** that seems to have set in with the beginning of spring, when she began to realize that they really would probably lose this war. 

Someone calls her name, and she turns from the peace outside the barn to the carnage within.  Melanie is calling her from one of the stalls.  Sound crashes back in on her, and she hears several of her sister slayers crying, mostly in pain and fear, but also the shuddering sobs of grief.  Several of the girls here are dying, and they lost at least twenty last night at the church.  At least half of those will have been turned, probably most.  And now Natalia has Willow as a hostage. 

She walks toward the stall and Melanie departs to help tend to the wounded.  She can't remember ever seeing irrepressible Melanie ever looking so lost.  Faith went out to patrol the area, but Buffy is nowhere to be seen, and that's odd too.  Someone in the stall is sobbing uncontrollably.

She rounds the corner and looks into the stall.  Dark golden hair matted with blood is the first thing to catch her eyes.  At first she thinks this is Sandra and wonders what happened to Dawn, but this girl is too small to be Sandra.  They're all wearing dark clothing, and all of them are bloody.  The girl in the stall seems very young, with pale skin and a slender body curled into a fetal position.  There's a word on her lips, shaped over and over, as she fights to breathe between the sobs that wrack her body...

Willow.

With a shock she realizes that this broken 'girl' is Buffy, their leader and her friend.  She kneels down on old mud, straw, and horse shit, and pulls Buffy into her lap.  Buffy seems totally unaware of her presence or touch, and she doesn't resist.  Her skin is cold and clammy, with a fine sheen of sweat under the blood.  She reaches out with that special sense that allows them all to recognize each other as slayers, and nearly retches at the agony and grief she finds. 

" _Somebody bring me Dawn!_ " she screams, and a few moments later Dawn steps around the corner and sinks down beside her.  Sandra reaches the edge of the stall a few seconds later with a makeshift crutch, and she's wearing several bloody bandages and an improvised leg splint.

Buffy shifts slightly at her sister's touch.  Dawn tries to sooth her for the next several minutes, and eventually Buffy gets her breathing under control enough to whisper " _She's dead_..."

Dawn gasps and turns almost gray.  Sandra closes her eyes, then slowly sinks to the ground. 

Buffy's eyes open, but she doesn't see any of them, and she whispers " _Faith..._ "

A moment later they all hear Faith's distant voice scream " _Buffy!_ ", then again a few seconds later, much closer.  The girls in the barn hear the strain of her voice, and murmurs of worry begin as Faith runs into the barn and directly to the stall.  Buffy turns and Faith catches her up.  They land against the wall of the stall and cling to each other. 

Dawn touches her shoulder, and indicates that they should give Buffy and Faith some privacy.  Outside the stall, as they help Sandra stand again, Dawn whispers "Thank you Tricia."

Tricia nods and walks back to the barn entrance, lost in thought.  She hadn't expected Natalia to simply kill Willow.  A trade perhaps, Buffy and Faith for Willow, or some powerful artifact.  But apparently killing her was enough to shatter Buffy, and probably Faith as well.  That meant that Dawn and she and Sandra would be leading at least this group of slayers, and maybe all of them, if Vi and Kennedy hadn't made it out of the church. 

And now their odds of winning the war looked bleaker than ever. 

 

[about six hours later]

It's noon, and the sun is shining brightly outside, with only a few scattered clouds.

Buffy and Faith are somehow different, lessened, as they stand together at the doorway of the barn full of broken girls.  Buffy leans on Faith like she can barely stand, and at only 26 her eyes look like they've seen centuries of pain.  Apparently this is what it means to be the oldest living slayer ever.  Faith... somehow over the last two years Faith has become the strong one of their strange triune, and it very definitely shows now.

"We're going back to Rheims," Faith says, "but the rest of you don't have to." 

Several of the girls look suddenly very alarmed, but no one interrupts. 

Faith continues "B and I are done running.  They've killed Willow, and we're gonna make them pay for that."  She pauses.  "But it's probably a suicide mission, so this is strictly volunteer.  If you've got any doubts, stay here.  Live a little longer, there's no shame in it.  And there won't be any 'step up' crap just now.  Think it over, we're leaving at sunset.  Those of you who wanna live should probably go the other direction."

 

[Sunset]

Five of the slayers who survived last night’s battle at the church have died from their injuries during the day.  Eight are still, alive, in addition to Buffy, Faith, and Tricia herself. The surviving slayers debate whether to die fighting or run and hide while they wait for their leaders.  It sounds like at least five will go back to Rheims.   For Tricia the choice is clear.  She’ll follow Buffy anywhere.

There’s a strangled cry from the back of the barn where Buffy and Faith have been sleeping, and a moment later everyone sees Buffy bolt out through the small back door.  Her eyes are wide and panicked and she moves like she suddenly can’t get enough air.  Faith stands and stagger-runs out after her.

Tricia and Dawn make eye contact across the room.  Dawn announces that there will be a slight delay as she and Tricia both walk slowly to the back exit.  Dawn looks like she’s bracing herself for the worst, and they both know what the worst might be.

Outside, they find Buffy and Faith kneeling on the ground in the field facing each other.  They’re about 400 feet from the barn, surrounded by a sea of some sort of weed with small purple flowers.  Watching them feels like a statement of the Yin-Yang principle, with Faith a study of moonlight skin and hair like shadows, and Buffy a contrast in sunlight and gold.  The scene is beautiful in the sunset light.  But the light is fading.  Faith is trying to comfort Buffy, though she looks almost as freaked as Buffy does. 

As she approaches the two women, Tricia feels the familiar oddity of watching a conversation that doesn’t require words, only touch, and she wonders again what it would be like to have such an intimate depth of communication.  It scares her, a little, but then she’s never found someone she could even potentially feel _that_ comfortable with, where the blurred sense of self would seem like a gain instead of a loss.

Dawn breaks the silence by whispering “We’re gonna need another Orb of Thesula.”

“She’ll expect that, you know,” Tricia replies, then wonders “Do you think she’ll help Natalia hunt us?”

Dawn thinks for a moment.  She looks scared, and like she’s trying very hard not to show it.  Her voice is cautious and measured.  “Maybe.  I don’t think so, but... maybe.  If she does then we’re all screwed.  There’s no way either of them will be able to hurt her, even if she tries to kill them.”

Tricia’s tactical mind shifts into overdrive as she begins to realize the wider implications of Dawn’s statement.  “Dawn, I think we need to get you out of here, _NOW_.  We need to leave Europe ASAP.”

Dawn turns to face her with the full force of her sapphire blue eyes “What?! _Why?_   They _need_ me, I’m not going anywhere but _with_ _them_.”

“Dawn, think about it,” she whispers urgently, “Willow...”  She trails off as Buffy looks directly at her and stands.

“S-she’s right, Dawn,” Buffy chokes out.  Tricia _feels_ that something has changed in Buffy.  She seems somehow less broken now, but colder, _lost_.  Faith stands, and they lean against each other.  “You have to leave,” Buffy continues with a bit more strength.  “You’re the only one who understands Willow’s notes and who loves us all enough to make the ritual wor-“. 

 “What are you **saying**?!” Dawn interrupts shrilly, “You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking, ‘cause that would be just crazy and... and...”  She wipes her eyes and blinks, but the tears begin to flow anyway. “ _Nooo_... no, no, nononono...”  She shakes her head in vehement denial, then runs the short distance to Buffy.

Buffy catches her, and they both sink to the ground in tears.  Dawn pleads over and over for Buffy not to leave her _again_ , telling her that she _promised_ , but Buffy says nothing and simply holds her more tightly.

Buffy and Faith make eye contact briefly, and Faith turns to Tricia and says “C’mon, we need t' talk,” then heads slowly back toward the barn.  Tricia walks beside her. 

“You’re going to join her.”  It’s not a question.

“I dunno.  Maybe.  ‘Pends on what B does.”  Faith looks her in the eyes, and it’s like looking at the night sky – so much darkness, but filled here and there with light so intense it could burn you to cinders in an instant if you got too close.  “We aren’t whole without each other.  I figured that out a long time ago.”

Tricia is afraid to ask the question, but she needs to know.  “Will you hunt us?  Like they do?”

Faith smiles, and it’s not a nice smile.  “Nah, I’m a big game hunter at heart, and sorry kid, but you’re still small fry.”  From anyone else, Tricia would feel very insulted, but from Faith, the comment is almost comforting.  After a beat Faith adds "And B's just gonna want revenge for all the shit they've put us through."

Tricia nods and looks back toward the barn.  Faith comments on her thoughts.  “Most of ‘em are gonna die.  When B and the brat come back, you’re gonna take her and Sandra and Melanie to an airport that _isn’t_ Paris, ‘cause that’s too obvious, and you’re gonna get a ticket for someplace _far_ away.  Don’t tell _anyone_ where you are or where you’re going, including us and the Council.  You’ll want to stay around Dawn all the time, and do some sort of cloaking ritual whenever you can’t.  Keep moving and don’t stay in one place for more than two weeks, _tops_.”  She pauses and stops for a moment, “And good luck, T, we’re all gonna need it.”

They enter the barn, and Faith winks at her, looking to anyone who doesn’t know her well like she’s fine and strong despite the limp and the scars and the missing finger.  She looks like she’s ready to fight to the death and never surrender, and not at all like someone who has already surrendered.

Faith walks to the front of the barn and begins talking about guerrilla tactics, one of her standard speeches, and explaining that they’re going to split up into pairs and triples and try to kill as many slayer-vamps as possible.  It appears that all the survivors are willing to fight with her, though that may be simply because everyone thinks that ‘flee/hide’ = ‘death’ anyway.

While Faith speaks, Tricia makes eye contact with Melanie and Sandra and waves them over, then leads them out the back door.  Outside she explains “Willow’s been turned.  We’re taking Dawn and running.  Get your stuff and Dawn’s and get in the van, and I’ll explain on the way.”

They leave silently, and Tricia turns to watch Buffy and Dawn in the distance.  Several minutes pass, and the sisters stand and embrace, then slowly walk toward her.  Tricia hears movement to one side, and watches as Melanie loads the van while Sandra shakily climbs into the back.

 Buffy and Dawn are crying, but laughing too.  Reminiscing, she supposes.  Tricia waits silently for them, and wishes she hadn’t been an only child.

Dawn and Buffy embrace tightly one more time, then Dawn runs toward the van and the solace of Sandra’s arms.

“Are you ready?” Buffy asks

“Much as we can be,” Tricia responds.  “Are you sure this is what you want?  You know she’ll find a reason to go back to Rheims and try to save the three of you.”

“I know that,” she whispers, “and I’m counting on you and Sandra to make sure that she doesn’t.”

“You’ve never let me down Buffy, and I’ll always do my damnedest not to let you down.”

“You won’t.  I know you won’t.” 

There’s something in her tone...  Tricia looks deeper, touches the slayer connection.

“You’ve already decided.” 

Buffy nods slightly, once.  “I can’t live without her.  The Immortal taught me that much.”

Tricia closes her eyes for a moment, remembering Buffy emotionally broken and filled with fear and rage as she lay beside Willow on the hospital bed, and several weeks before that, when their connection had broken Andréaus’ hold on Buffy’s mind.  “I understand,” Tricia says.

Buffy suddenly steps forward and hugs her tightly, and for a moment she does nothing but stand there.  Then the surprise wears off, and she returns the hug.  “You _are_ my family, you know, and I love you, even if you are way more British than an American girl ever should be.  I know you’ll take care of Dawn for me.”

 Buffy slowly releases her and smiles brokenly for a moment, then goes into the barn.

Tricia walks to the van and climbs into the driver’s seat, glancing around.  Melanie already has the maps out and ready.  Dawn is in the back seat quietly crying into Sandra’s lap.  Sandra meets her gaze and nods slightly.  Tricia turns forward and starts the van.

As they set off for destinations unknown, the dusk has turned to night.

 


	6. Nightmare Hunt

August 2007

Katerina dreams of fighting several dozen slayer-vampires in the catacombs beneath a city in Europe.  She flows effortlessly from move to move, every attack precise and flawless and deadly.  Her stake feels like a living thing, a deadly serpent that cannot help but pierce the vampires’ hearts as if to seek them out as the most delicious prey.  Some of the vampires are quite powerful, masters perhaps, but none of them can match her skill, or speed, or power, and that’s all that matters now.  She sense every one of them no matter where they hide or what they do, can feel every move they’re going to make before they make it.  Nothing surprises her, even when fighting several at once.  She feels like she’s become one with the battle, violence and wrath incarnate, invincible.  She can feel her two sister-lovers as well, closing in from two opposite corridors.  The slayer-vamps converge at the junction, herded like sheep before the wolves, and find themselves trapped with no place to flee or hide.  They fight, and die, like cornered rats, vicious and violent and reckless, and in the end, helpless.  The air fills with dust.  Together, they are unstoppable. 

 


	7. Lalania (fallen)

October 2007

Lalania strides into the old factory, noting the absence of any sort of guard.  She'd been hoping for a warm up against some guards, but it looks like she'll have to find them rather than the other way around.  The factory looks like it hasn’t been used in years.  Something to do with mining and ore refinement, she deduces as she casually glances around at the heavily constructed machines.  Based on the odors, the oil has long since congealed to paste from the desert extremes of summer heat and winter cold.

She'd known they were here because she could smell them.  Nothing quite like the stench of a well used vampire nest.  Add to that the unique musty odor of a reasonably old master, and she would have known they were here at a sniff even if she hadn't sensed them from half a mile away.  It stood to reason that the master here should have sensed her by now, but given the lack of guards, or even a half-assed trap or two (tsk, tsk, foolish lazy vampires), she doubts that he or she is paying attention. 

She follows the odor through the factory proper to a stairway leading up to the catwalks and down into a basement.  She quiets her footsteps and descends without hesitation.  They'd let her get this far unnoticed, she might as well keep things that way.  From the odor intensity, this is their standard entrance.  She detects four distinct scents, each with a distinct age.  Four generations.  The master is male.  The second and third oldest are female, and the youngest is male.  A family then, or as much as vampires could have.  There's also the strong smell of new leather.  New biker jackets all around?

She smirks to herself as she reaches the basement landing.  She doesn't think of herself as a vampire.  She's something else.  New.  _Better_.  She's what the vampires fear.  Or they will, in time.

There's a steel door rusting on the floor at the threshold of the stairwell and a hallway beyond with several doors on either side of it, and a large restroom area at the far end.  The hall is lit by several flickering fluorescents along the hall ceiling.  There's also a colorful flickering light coming from an open door at the far left of the hall. 

She silently crosses the fallen door and stalks down the hallway.  She doesn’t have a single weapon beyond her body itself and what she can find.  No specialty items either.  She left them in the car.  More challenging this way.  

Kirsten is probably waiting for her, might even be upset by now.  Lalania decides she doesn't care right now, though she might later.  Let Kirsten find her own entertainment for once.  Makeup sex is the best kind anyway.

She stalks to the doorway of the room with the flickering colored lights, and finds them all gathered watching a large TV on the far wall.  The master is sitting on the left, in a very plush, very new looking brown padded leather recliner.  He looks Mexican, or probably would, in his human face.  His conical goatee looks pretty stupid in vamp form, but she doubts anyone has told him that lately.  His clothes might have been stylish in the 50's.  The younger female vamp and the young male are sprawled in a matching recliner sofa in the center of the room.  She's made up as a 90's Goth type, complete with died black hair and blood red lipstick.  Looks somewhat tasty.  He's a muscular black man with denim pants, a muscle shirt, and long dreadlocks.  Lalania hates those.  Filthy.  He dies first.  On the right, the older female is sitting in a slowly swaying padded rocking chair and half reading Teen Cosmo.  She's tiny, a bit smaller than Lalania, looks young.  Stunningly beautiful Spanish features, long black hair, more gothic beauty than the Goth, but dressed in velvet and lace.  Couldn't have been more than 18 when he turned her several centuries ago.  This guy has taste.

She decides there must be a service elevator around somewhere.  No other way to get the furniture down here. 

They're watching one of those mind-numbingly stupid 'reality TV' shows.  This explains everything.  Now they _must_ die. 

She sprints into the room and toward the sofa.  Short hop, and into a spinning power kick that slams her left heel into the girl's nose.  She feels the satisfying crunch of bones against her boot as the Goth flies in her sire's general direction.  That ought to get them stirred up. 

Dreadlocks is the first on his feet.  He's already hopping out of the sofa as his girlfriend flies out of it.  Lalania spins as her momentum carries her over the sofa.  She lands in the middle of them on her right foot and, ballerina style, continues her spin into a flawless sweep kick that catches his feet and spins him before he can even touch the ground.  She torques her hips with the impact, pulls her left leg under her, and rotates into an explosive upward right kick that slams the edge of her foot into his throat that sends him violently tumbling over the sofa and into the doorframe while she resets in a Mok-Gar kick stance. 

The master scream-roars at her as he leaps across the armrest of his chair.  Stupid.  Slow.  She catches him in the chest with a jackhammer series of three right side kicks to his gut just before he touches the ground, sends him into the left wall. 

Spanish Princess isn't moving yet, so Lalania leaps back across the sofa to deal with Dreadlocks.  He's in the process of slumping to the ground, dazed, but recovering.  Time to play. 

She shifts her balance into a forward right heel kick into his nose.  Bait.  He's a bit slow to react, and the kick lands with the sound of a slap, but he is fast enough to catch her ankle and toes as she twists her leg to smear his nose across his face.  He twists her foot inward, trying to trip her.  And switch.  She uses his strength and her speed to pull back and counter-twist with her right leg while pushing off with her left, allowing her to spin a rotating power kick into his temple with her left boot heel.  His temple shatters inward. 

She knows that hasn't killed him, not yet.  Unconsciousness doesn’t cause him to release her foot, and her shoulder and hip touch the ground briefly before she twists out of his grasp and bounces to her feet in a crouch.  She straightens her hand into a blade shape and rams her fingers into his chest just below his rib cage, grasps his heart, then twists and rips it from him.  She's already turning to the left side of the room to face the master as Dreadlocks and his heart turn to dust.

The master is already on his feet and charging.  90% rule.  Make them mad enough, and 90% of all vamps get stupid.  He goes low for a tackle.  Lalania springs out of her crouch at the last moment into a full force right roundhouse to his right cheekbone, then continues the twist into a second left power kick that slams her heel into his exposed throat.  He sails limply beneath her to land in Dreadlocks dust.  She lands softly and turns as he tumbles out the doorway.  Goth chick is just now regaining her feet.  Spanish Princess has drawn a rapier from beside her chair.

Out in the hallway, the master tries to rise on hands and knees, fails.  She decides to drain him.  Lalania lunges out the doorway and catches him by the neck.  No matter how good he is in a fight, she's easily faster and stronger.  She spins and throws him into the far wall.  It turns out to be brick.  She hears several of his ribs and maybe his hip crack at the impact.  He begins to slump to the ground, but she's already got him by the head again before he falls.  Lalania locks his arms with her own and slams him into the wall again, face first.  He's barely conscious now, and his head lolls to the side, baring the side of his throat.  She bites deeply, and sucks his blood into her. 

She hears movement behind her, and suddenly spins with his body.  Spanish Princess thrusts her rapier through his throat.  Lalania twists as the rapier enters, and grabs the girl's wrist, then twists it into an arm bar that hyperextends her right elbow and dislocates her shoulder.  She then spots the girl's left hand in an attempt to thrust a makeshift stake, probably from the chair, into Lalania's heart.  Good tactic, but she's far too fast.  Lalania catches her wrist and crushes it while she simultaneously twists and dislocates that shoulder as well.

As she bites into Princess's neck and drains her, Goth Girl kneels against the doorframe of their TV room and watches them.  Lalania drains Princess to just 10% or so, enough to keep her from dusting, but not enough to heal, then lets her slump to the ground.  She picks up the master's head and twists it off.  He dusts. 

 


	8. Conversion Vendetta

October 2007  (Somewhere in the mountains of east-central Africa.)

 

Three weeks to prepare, and everything comes down to this last battle.  The summonings and sacrifices had gone perfectly.  Thirteen slayer-vampires, two dozen some hellhounds, thirty-some assorted warrior demons, several dozen zombies and several powerful ghosts raised by eight turned shamans and three accomplished sorcerers, over a hundred vampires, and the Blackgod Lord of Darkness.  Now they need only wait, and the Triune would come to them.  Savridha, her slayer-vampires, and her army would be ready.

 

[An hour later]

"Hold the barrier!" Savridha growled at the terrified sorcerers, "If it falls we all die." 

She looked back to the battlefield and watched in futile rage as the Triune slaughtered her army.  The guns had all been useless.  The bullets simply bounced away from them.  Some sort of ancient war spell that the sorcerers hadn't known was possible and could do nothing about.  Even the rocket launchers had been useless.  The strongest of them, the girl called 'Red', with glowing emerald green eyes and marble skin and straight black hair and nothing red on her but blood, had simply sent the rockets back at her army, and nearly half of the vampires had died in the first volley.  She'd shrieked like a rage spirit, and the ghosts had fled.  Then the other two strode forward and simply tore into the ranks of her warrior demons like hyenas among screaming infants. 

'The other two'.  Dressed in leather pants and leather coats and with marble white skin just like Red, but otherwise like darkness and light.  The first, whom she had heard named 'Sorrow', possessed eyes of cold darkness and rage and wavy black hair like a shroud of night.  This massacre is obviously her pleasure, for why else would she shatter the arms and legs of a Fyarl and rip out its horns before twisting off its head?  Or sometimes she just leaves them crippled for Red to kill.  The other, called 'Liss' glowed like golden moonlight, with dark green eyes with the predatory glint of a stalking panther in deepest jungle and golden hair and skin like milk.  She fought with ruthless efficiency, no distractions, mercifully quick with her kills.

The three moved in _perfect_ synchronicity, like one mind in three bodies.  As the three moved forward, occasionally Liss but usually Sorrow would simply cripple an enemy instead of killing it.  Then Red would glide forward, feet barely touching the ground, and she would caress the crippled thing's head, and smile softly, and devour its spirit, and all three of them seemed to become a little bit stronger. 

Now the Blackgod stepped gracelessly forward, moving like a child manipulating a shadow puppet, flickering now and then from one point to the next, wearing the body of a white woman with black hair.  The Blackgod reaches the sorcerers' barrier and vanishes, only to appear instantaneously on the other side.  Red turns instantly to stare at the god, and an instant later Liss and Sorrow also turn their focus.  The night itself suddenly comes alive as shadows deepen and gather and move as one toward the Triune like a black wave filling a hole. 

Red grins, and her eyes flash like emeralds in the sun, and suddenly Savridha senses that the shadow wave is keening in fear, that it wants to pull away from the Triune, but can't.  She watches in dismay as Red lifts her hands in mock welcome, closes her eyes, and the living darkness is drawn into her.  Ecstasy washes across her face, and the Triune advance on the Blackgod. 

The Blackgod flickers and appears behind Red, but she's already moving, as are Liss and Sorrow, and an instant later the Blackgod's possessed body is flying backwards and purple-black lightning erupts from Red's fanned hands.  But she's just a fraction too slow, and the Blackgod flickers out of existence to reappear just outside of their triangle.  All three sense the move, seem even to anticipate it, and Liss and Sorrow lash out in a blur of fists and feet.  At the same time they seem to be dodging something, but it's not apparent what it is until a Greater Lei-Ach tries to attack Sorrow while she's distracted, and simply explodes in a spray of blood and chunks without her ever touching it. 

The Blackgod isn't quite fast enough to simultaneously attack them and block all of their attacks, but appears only slightly injured by the damage, and perhaps that doesn’t matter at all.  But then the stalemate shifts as Red whispers something, and a moment later the Blackgod freezes in the middle of several simultaneous strikes against Liss and Sorrow.  There are discontinuous tendrils of darkness all around the Blackgod, Liss, and Sorrow, and it's suddenly apparent to Savridha that these are what Liss and Sorrow were dodging. 

The tendrils abruptly vanish, and the Blackgod's puppet assumes a simple standing pose, arms at her sides, and watches Red.  Red smiles softly, and steps forward to stand in front of the Blackgod.  She speaks softly, Savridha catches a few phonemes and thinks it might be Koptic, but she isn’t sure.  Even with her vampiric hearing, she can barely hear the words at all.  Red's voice is soft though, perhaps even kindly.  But the fear she suddenly senses from the Blackgod shatters that illusion.

Savridha's army stands silently, united in terror.  Most of them can sense that 'Red' is no slayer-vampire.  Vampire yes, but vastly more than that.  The other two however…, she and the other twelve can sense that they were once slayer-vampires.  But too, now they are far more than that. 

Liss raises her hand to the starry black sky, and suddenly a blood red and silver axe-like weapon appears in it.  The weapon bears a crescent axe blade with a recurved lower edge, and the haft end tapers into a long spike.  Something in her resonates, and she knows suddenly that that weapon is somehow a part of her, somehow part of the reason for her existence as a slayer. 

Red speaks again softly, but her voice projects perfectly across the silent battlefield.  "We come only for the slayers, but we will destroy utterly any that seek to bar us from that goal.  Go now, run away like the vermin you are, and perhaps we will forget your existence for a while.  Pester us, and death is the _best_ that you can hope for."

Liss blurs into motion, silver and blood blur across her vision and through the neck of the Blackgod's puppet.  It falls limply to the ground and vanishes a moment later.  The tableau shatters, and the shattered pathetic remnants of her army beyond the barrier run off in all directions, anywhere but here, with _them_.

Red raises her hand, and begins chanting a spell.  Savridha feels it as her black aura extends across the barrier like the falcon's shadow over the rabbit.  Liss and Sorrow quietly walk to equidistant points around Savridha and her twelve slayer-vampires, surrounding them.  A moment later, the barrier silently dissipates, and the Triune close upon them.  Her sisters fight, and die, like cornered rats.

It's over.

 


	9. Slayers Reborn (chaos)

February 2008 

The Blue Ridge police station is in flames.

Tricia can feel Katerina's rage and confusion, knows that she's headed back to her brother.  She and Kirsten are also headed that way, but Katerina is _strong_ , both from War Form and from her panicked frenzy.  Tricia doesn't know how she's going to stop Kat, but she has to try, so she runs as fast as she can to Anthony's apartment.

She spots the parking lot up ahead, and a large hole opens in the wall of the apartment as Kat erupts through it.  Kat spots her and runs directly at her, and _oh, Goddess_ she's fast.  Tricia can feel the _rage_ and _hunger_ radiating from her, feel all her emotions magnified and twisted by her use of the War Form.

Kat reaches her, and Tricia tries to duck and roll past her, but she isn't fast enough.  Katerina catches her head in hands like iron, and twists and wrenches and kicks against her as they pass.  Tricia feels an _immense_ pain in her neck, a hundred times worse than anything else she's ever felt, and then she can't feel her body and the night sky is rotating above her.

The ground comes up hard and fast and scrapes across her cheeks, nose, and ears, but the fire at her neck still hasn’t stopped so the scrapes are nothing.  As the world rotates she catches a glimpse of Kat slowing and reversing direction, then of a woman's slumped body several dozen feet away, jetting blood from the ragged stump of her neck. 

Her head comes to rest on her left ear, looking toward the parking lot.  She has arrived.  Tricia hopes she can reach War Form, because otherwise she doesn't have a chance.

Tricia closes her eyes, and the pain fades to blackness.

 


	10. Lalania (Kirsten)

November 2008 

"I think I was in love with her."  Kirsten looks down at her hands, inspects the calluses and the micro-splinters that seem to be part of every slayer.  "Jamie became the sister I never had, and Amy became my new mother, but Lalania was my _hero_.  It seemed like she could do anything, like, like... _anything_."  Her mind flashes back to a vision of Lalania grinning at her and seemingly glowing in the sunlight before tossing two home-made and alchemically supercharged chloroform gas grenades into a crypt with a big nest of vamps.  Ten minutes latter they'd casually walked in with gas masks and staked 15 unconscious vamps.

"I think I know what you mean," Krysta tells her.

"No.   _No_ , you don’t get it.  This was way before the stuff that Dawn did to us.  This was right before the war, when the Slayer force started getting used up.  We were all a lot weaker than Buffy and Faith were before Willow's ritual, and **_way_** weaker than we are now.  We were like, uhm, military vet strong, yanno?, but not much more than that.  And no fuckin' way were we a match for even half a dozen vamps.  We were gettin' killed left and right by the strong ones.  But _every time_ we came up against some badass vamp or demon, Lalania found a way to kill it without any of us getting more than scuff marks."

Krysta smiles, "I'm sure Amy and Jamie had something to do with that, too."

She remembers late nights playing Tekken 5 with Jamie while Amy and Lalania researched books written in languages where she couldn't even recognize letters, let alone read and contribute intelligently.  Nearly always, after Amy and Lalania had identified the threat, Lalania would propose a battle plan within minutes, and there never seemed to be much need to revise the proposal, only fill in details.

"Yeah, they did," she replies.  "Amy was a really good Watcher – she did most of the research.  Jamie was pretty good at battle plans and maybe a better fighter than Lalania.  But she... Lalania was good at _everything_.  She knew enough about weird old languages and funky demons to be really helpful to Amy, and she was better than all the rest of us put together at battle plans.  Like... Arête or something."

"Arête?" Krysta asks, confused.

"You know, goddess of the hunt?"

"I think you mean _Artemis_." 

An image pops into her head of a black-and-white line drawing of a beautiful woman with elfin features, crouched in front of a trail of animal tracks, and holding a bow.  She can't remember the title of the picture.  She hadn't been paying much attention to the text.  It might have been a D&D book.  "Yeah, I guess so." 

"How do you feel about Lalania now?"

Her emotions react to the question before her conscious mind can stop them, and she remembers Lalania naked and kneeling atop her with a small, very sharp paring knife, cutting intricate designs into her breasts and licking her blood until the wounds healed.  The pain had been exquisite.  She still has nightmares about the feel of Lalania's fangs cutting into her chest.

"Confused," Kirsten says simply.

Krysta watches her quietly with her soft brown eyes and tender expression.  Kirsten wishes again that Krysta could have been _hers_ , instead of falling for Lalania – one more dream stolen.  She quickly suppresses the thought.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these in 2007-2009 as dream fragments for a Slayerverse RPG campaign, to hint at the past timeline. They stand as reference points to my writing quality back then, and as a test case for my first post to AoOO. More importantly, the timeline won't let me go. I expect to add/flesh out much more in the future.


End file.
